Pleasantville council approves paid traffic-count analysis despite one dissent

Pleasantville City Council voted July 15 to contract Iowa Counts for a weekday video traffic-count analysis at the Pleasant Street and Highway 5 intersection, approving the $1,020 vendor fee plus time billed by the city engineering firm, ISG.

The approval followed a presentation by city engineer Joey Whitehouse, who outlined two vendor quotes: Iowa Counts for $1,020 plus ISG time (estimated three hours) and Quality Counts for $2,120 plus ISG time (estimated two hours). Whitehouse said the DOT will provide an official count on its four-year schedule next year, but that Pleasantville would not receive those data for at least another year after that.

Council Member Jordan Van Ness and Mayor Kody Jurgens argued the updated counts would help market development opportunities and provide more current traffic information than the city's post-COVID data. "We need to update our numbers for the benefit of development," Van Ness said. Council Member Aaron Hurt opposed paying for the study now, citing competing priorities including a natural gas utility issue and pending developer matters.

Motion by Council Member Kyle Patterson, seconded by Van Ness, carried with Van Ness, Patterson, Jon Koehn and Rachel Lopez voting aye and Hurt voting nay. The council did not specify a dollar contingency beyond the quoted vendor fee and the estimated ISG hours.

The study will use weekday video analysis covering 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., as described in the vendor quotes. The city did not provide an estimated completion date for the vendor analysis at the meeting; Whitehouse noted the DOT's scheduled count would arrive on a multi-year timeline.